Witch Craft And Coffins
by J S Arnold
Summary: Elena wakes where it is dark and she feels wooden pannels all around her. She cannot believe she's been buried alive...
1. Chapter 1

AR One-Shot

I Do Not Own The Vampire Diaries

Please tell me what you think

**Witch Craft And Coffins**

**Elena**

It is pitch black and the air is still when she opens her eyes on November 5th, as if it is the dead of night where not even the owls hoot in the darkness outside her window. She lifts her hands to her eyes and felt the movement of her eyelashes as she blinked. She lifted her hands above her head and felt the solid smoothness of oak. She feels plush velvet below her and her hands touch the silk at her sides, but as she tries to stretch all around her it is hard.

Her chest is burning as emotion floods her body. The adrenaline makes her feel the need to run, but she knows dimly that she cannot go anywhere. Her eyes would not adjust when there was no light, but she thought she could make out the dark oak of a panel above her. Her breath hitched and she tried to push at it but her arms felt like lead weights and it took all her energy to keep out in front of her. She felt a tear roll down her cheek as she tries not to think. If she let herself imagine where she was, she felt dawning terror, it would be all she could do to keep the flood of tears inside her. If she cried it would only leave her thirsty and her eyes sore. She couldn't let herself panic and think that she has been buried alive. Things like that belonged in a horror movie, not in Fells-Church. This kind of thing didn't happen to normal people, but normal people didn't believe that there really were monsters in the world. She knew there were.

If she held her breath, she thought that she could hear someone's footsteps but the sound was too quiet for her to be sure. If she only knew where she was then maybe she could convince herself that she hasn't been buried. _Anything but that_, she thinks. But the last thing she remembers is closing her eyes and laying on her bed. She knew she wasn't there now.

**Damon**

"What do you mean she's _missing_, Stefan?" Damon Salvatore demands, his strong hand raking through his coffee-bean coloured hair, his whole body as tense as a coiled spring as his brother glares at him, unimpressed. He understood the words, but he did not want to believe that his favourite girl had disappeared. He knew that he would have to temper his reactions in front of Stefan, but how could he when he felt so strongly?

"I mean that she has disappeared. Vanished. She's gone, Damon, and I think she's in trouble."

"Of course she's in trouble," Damon hissed, pacing the room, "It's _Elena_. Elena's always getting her ass in sticky situations." His tone made him sound nonchalant, but inside he was reeling. He _knew _this was going to happen, _he_ knew and had done nothing. Now they had no idea where she was and who held her there. He would not believe that she was dead, he could not, because he had not had the intelligence to know something was up.

"Who do you think has her, if she's even still alive?"

"I have no f_ idea!" Damon bellowed, his insides churning.

_Think Damon, think_. Who would want her to suffer?


	2. Chapter 2

AR OneShot

I Do Not Own The Vampire Diaries

**Witch Craft And Coffins**

**Elena**

Every time she moves an inch her heartbeat picks up further. Her throat is sore and as raw as fire; the flesh within her burns and her eyes sting with tears which are red hot. Each time she breathes it becomes harder to draw a breath – as if the oxygen in finite. Panic builds inside of her as she realises she is going to die.

Whenever she hits the wooden ceiling she hears nothing but a thud, as if she is in a place deep below the ground, and the sense of isolation grows. There was no one to tell her where she was and the air grew thinner with each moment. She could feel it in the way her lungs burned for oxygen, in her head, and how her heart beat faster.

Although she hadn't been there, an almost video-like replay formed in the darkness above her, of her parents drowning in the flash flood. She pictured her mother gasping for air as the watter seeped in through the windows – as she drowned. Elena felt as if she were drowning too, and her head grew heavier as air left her lungs.

She didn't need to concider for long who had done this to her – there was only one being that could be so cruel, but _she_ could not have done it on her own. She thought just one name as she sank into a different, fathomless, darkness.

_Katherine._

**Damon**

"This is not good enough!" Damon growled, his stomach churning, "Who knows where she might be hidden?" and his words were full of an odd mixture of anger and desolation. He felt as though he were going to combust if they did not find Elena soon.

"Well, we can't _do _anything until we know where to look..." a female voice said from the corner of the room, and a moment later there was the sound of a page turning in a book. Bonnie was pointing to a page in the dusty volume, "Trova ciò che è perduto." when he narrowed his eyes she elaberated, "Find what is lost. The spell's in Italian"

"That's _brilliant_," Damon sneered, "It might not even actually _be_ anything useful."

"It's better than nothing." she snapped back, proceeding to read aloud from the book. At first she seemed only to be making random sounds and Damon's impatience flared up again. Every second that they wasted trying to find the spell they needed, the more likely it was that they would find Elena dead, and he could not stand the thought.

"It'd be quicker to use are eyes to look for her," he said scornfully. But Bonnie didn't respond to his quip. She gazed unseeingly across her bedroom, probably channeling whatever power she could weild, and Damon felt an odd sensation build within him. Fear, weariness, uncertainty. All these swirled within him as he watched her delve deeper into the shadows.

"Bonnie?" he asked, "Is everything ok?"

"Dark. Pitch Black. Dead. Panic. Katherine." she murmured, her eyes as flat and unmobing as buttons, as if she were speaking to herself.

"A coffin." This time it was her normal voice, and Damon stiffened.

"The graveyard." he said just as bluntly.


	3. Chapter 3

AR One Shot

I do not own the Vampire Diaries

**Witch Craft And Coffins**

**3**

**Damon**

He sniffed the air and moaned; her scent was faint and, as the wind blew over the gravestones, only growing more fragile. He knew that _she_ had Elena here in the graveyard somewhere but just where even his vampire senses could not make out. He could remember how she had smelt that morning, but who knew what kind of state she would be in at that moment? The suggestion that Katherine had her in the graveyard felt too ominous to sit well with him.

Damon hadn't asked what spell Bonnie used, although he was practically going insane with curiosity, because he did not want to know. He did not _need_ to know what it was, just that it would keep Elena safe, and for now that was all that mattered. Elena's safety mattered more than his own life (existence?) and he felt himself growing readier and readier for whatever Katherine had to throw at him. _As long as she is safe_, he thought as he ran through the graveyard to the abandoned church at it's center, _Please let her be safe_.

He scanned the area beneath his feet as he ran and frowned. Below him, buried deep into the ground, were hundred of rotting corpses and their smell over powered everything else. He could smell the rotting flesh of the recently buried and the musky smell of those who were centuries dead. He ran quicker than a speeding bullet, all the while checking every blade of grass for a trace of her.

Then he stopped suddenly, his heels digging into the dirt below him. At last he could smell her, and with that familiar scent came the haunting fragrance of a vampire. Katherine.

He was almost at the outer edge of the graveyard when he heard Bonnie call his name. He turned in her direction and saw her staring down at the ground. He forced himself to move faster and within seconds he stood with her, peering at the ground. He saw nothing but dirt and grass, but his ears told him that there was indeed something not dead 6 foot underground. He braced himself and started to dig in all earnest. He felt something worse than fear, dread maybe, as he dug his fingers into the firm soil.

Bonnie, standing behind him, could not say a word as he dug in near silence, the only sound the occasional grunt of effort as he shoveled unthinkable amounts of dirt from the place she had signaled. He dug with such vigor that anyone who watched him work could guess that he has had his own clarification – no one dug like that, even if they had supernatural endurance, on a whim or by someone's instruction alone. He dug for a few solid minutes before he hit bloodied, healing, fingers touched a wooden surface.

Now that he could take a moment to rest, he could smell her for certain. With growing horror he realized that Katherine's plan had been to bury her alive. He told himself that he shouldn't be surprised by the lengths she could got to to get what she wanted, but the horror stuck in his throat.

He gripped the coffin lid and lifted it with all the strength that remained inside him – he needed to feed, but he wouldn't leave her even for that – never mind that he was so thirsty he was a danger to anyone who so much as cut their finger on a holly-leaf/

His burning thirst seemed to take a back-bench to what he saw before him as he stared into the casket and saw her beautiful eyes closed. The dark hair which fell around her pail face seemed almost black in the places where her tears had melted into the sides. He could trace to tear-tracks with his eyes, and he did for just a few moments with his finger-tips.

"Elena!" a tight voice said behind him, and Bonnie stood at the edge of the hole with her hands covering her face like a 18th century mask. He wanted to tell her that it would be all right, but would it, he wondered.

Had he been to slow, was this all his fault?

Her sobbing stopped suddenly and Damon turned around. He saw Elena in her appearance, but saw a devil in her eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

AR ONE-SHOT

I do not own the vampire diaries

**Witchcraft and Coffins**

**4**

**Damon**

"Where's Elena?" he asked the beautiful woman before him, his tone like a threat, chargrin and exhasperation struggling for control over his face. He hated how he had fallen for her trick – he ought to have known that she wouldn't make it so easy. He had thought he loved her for so long that the surge of pure hatred at seeing her face in Fellschurch felt palpable. He thought he had hated his brother before, but he knew now what _real_ hatred was.

"Wouldn't you like to know." Kathrine's smile was angelic but her jagged teeth shone white in the light of the full moon overhead. He couldn't imagine why he had thought she was a helpless woman back then – looking at her now he knew that she was anything but. She was a prediator like him, a beast in human form, but to him she had been an angel.

"Stop it with the avasiveness, Katherine – I'm not in the mood. I'll ask again, Where is Elena?"

She nipped Bonnie's neck playfully and Bonnie moaned, "Does this human mean anything to you?"

_She is Elena's best friend_. "Yes."

He heard the crack to loudly as Katherine snapped her head to the side, breaking the hold the girl's head had to her spine. Bonnie fell to the ground, just bones and flesh, but Damon didn't spare the dead girl a glance. He didn't want to look into those dark eyes and see them gradually turn flat. He didn't need to see that and the blood he imagined on his hands. This was _his _fault, amd Elena will never forgive him for it.

_Elena_.

"Where's Elena?" he asked again in a frightening voice, "Tell me Katherine, no more questions – I want answers."

"Elena's safe," she told him, "for now. But don't forget that one word from me and she's dead." She spoke so casually that you wouldn't have guessed that she had just murdered an innocent girl, but there was an intensity in her eyes. She approached him slowly, like a jaguar, but Damon could only stare at the body she had thrown to the floor. He could not let go of the notion that he could have done more.

"What do you want from me, Katherine? To crush me further?" the realisation that she had never loved _him, _only Stephen, still hurt worse than a stake to the heart. Her lies had manifested into his life and he could not escape friom her ghost. Her lies had destroyed a large part of his humanity, his empathy and his capability to love. He felt drained of all that he was before, and now he was something primal, an animal.

"I want you to love me, Damon, like in the old days," she pouted and fluttered her eyelashes, and for a few seconds she was the picture of innocence, "And I know that'll never happen as long as Elena lives." She leant towards him and pecked him on the cheek, "That's why I put her somewhere secret – my secret hiding place!" and she clapped her hands in delight.

**Elena**

She has grown too exhausted to cry any longer and instead closes her eyes. She wishes that she could fall asleep, but her throat burns and her back aches. She couldn't seem to relax, although she felt so tierd, and instead lay with her eyes wide open. The air had grown thick and warm all around her and she felt as if she were being sufforcated.

Only a few insects had managed to find a way inside the coffin, but they crawled all her face and there was nothing she could do to swipe them off – she was too weak at this point, her arms ached with effort of wiggling her fingers. Everytime the roof groaned beneath the weight of all the dirt and rocks above her, she felt sure that the ceiling would break at any second. She knew that whoever had done this didn't want her to be found, and that terrified Elena.

What if she was never found?

Would Damon or Stephen think to look for her here, beneath 6 feet of soil in the graveyard? They knew she came here often to visit her parents, but the graveyard was large and she couldn't know if she was on the opporsite side. They would never think to look for her here unless Katherine told them the exact location. She was as good as dead already.

**Damon**

"Where in the graveyard?" Damon asked. He had tricked her into telling him the general location but he needed more information if he was going to find Elena in time to save her.

"You have to work that out youself," she laughed, "it's a game!"

Damon groaned and brought her face close to his, "Tell me Bitch."

She said nothing and his face darkened with rage. His eyes became such a vivid green that even Katherine glanced away. She found his monsterous face frightening. She gulped and spoke softly, but with a sense of desperation, "Stop it, Damon!"

"Tell me where she is!" he growled, his hands wrapped all the way around her neck. He squeezed her tighter and tighter until she grew limp. He through her unconscious body onto the floor and drew from his pocket a small dagger. He waited until she healed enough to open her eyes before he plunged the blade into her chest. She stared up at him in suprice but her eyes were dead and flat. She turned to stone before his eyes but he would not allow himself to feel regret. That was for Elena, the woman he loved.


	5. Chapter 5

AR ONE-SHOT

I do not own the vampire diaries

**Witchcraft and Coffins**

5

**Damon**

Damon felt the impatience surge up within him as a quarter of an hour passed without a result. He followed Bonnie further into the graveyard, marvelling at just how much the area had grown since he died, trying not to search for the tombstones marked Salvatore. It would do no good to invite darkness into his mind.

"We haven't got all the time in the world..." Damon sneered, his muscles aching with the need for action. He needed to feel as if he were doing something – making a difference. Right now he felt as if he were human. He could not move any faster, although he defiantly could, because only Bonnie knew which way to go. He wanted to tear the place apart until he found her, but he knew it wouldn't help any. He clenched his fists when Bonnie said nothing.

At last she stopped and stared at a patch where the soil had been disturbed. There was not a gravestone, but there was a small piece of card wedged into the dirt. She bent to retrieve it but Damon already had I between his fingers. He seemed to read it a couple of times before he let it slip from his hands. He wore an expression of deep concentration as he delicately sniffed the air and groaned.

Bonnie felt a darkness come over her as a vision overwhelmed her. She saw darkness, a coffin, and a figure laying peacefully inside. She tried to make out the face, but beetles crawled and worms slithered – distorting the features. It was only after she saw the ear rings, the ones she had given Elena for her birthday, that she understood what she was seeing. She was here, close, maybe even right below her feet.

Damon heard the soft thud on the tiny pebbles of the path and smelt the tangy, steely, sweetness of blood. He thought that he had caught at last Elena's scent, but nothing could be sensed other than the blood. At that moment, he felt a sudden wave of anger which hit him like a wave of fire. In that second, he thought he truly hated Bonnie, hated her screams and the crimson dripping from her hands and knees.

She felt his irritation but could not comprehend it. She could hardly breathe as she looked upon Elena as she laid in a grave. She knew that this was where Elena was now, buried deep below the ground.

Damon could smell Elena's sweat and tears. He knew the scent of her fear too well not to recognise it; Elena had always had that fear inside of her. He fell to his knees where the pull was strongest and dug his fingers into the ground. He felt Bonnie move to help him but he snarled at her in a warning not to come any closer. He didn't need her right now, because he knew she would only slow him down and Elena did not have much time.

As he dug deeper, he began to hear her heart beat, although it was weak. He felt tears on his cheeks as he dug further and further, his chest heaving with every giant sob. He would never forgive himself if when he found her she was dead. Losing Elena would hurt ten, a hundred, times worse that losing Katherine because this time he would know what he was without. There would never be another. He dug until his fingers dug into the polished oak of a coffin. He could practically feel her heartbeat now in his fingers, in his chest, as he forced his fingers to penetrate deeper until the lid

**Elena**

She thought she had died, that was her initial thought when she saw the light. She had been told that heaven's glow would be the brightest she ever saw, when she got there, but this light hurt, and heaven wasn't supposed to hurt, was it? She had always been assured that there would be no pain after she ascended to the sky, but tears sprung to her eyes as her entire being ached.

"Elena, Elena!" a heavenly voice called. "Is she ok?" Another voice asked.

A hand reached for her but she couldn't move. The soft touch of fingertips on the side of her face felt as refreshing as a cool cloth on a hot summer's day. She had never had it described to her, but she felt sure this was what a angel's touch felt like. It made her feel warm and at one with herself – as if she had been waiting her whole life to feel this complete. _He _made her feel complete. _He_ was her missing piece – this angel.

"_Oh, Elena..._" he whispered, bringing her up from the mangled coffin and into his arms. He smelt the same trace of fear that he sensed before, but slowly it was ebbing away like the tide. He knew he was doing the right thing by holding her so firmly, that she needed it. That she needed him.

"I love you Damon," she whispered close to his neck, "Angel."

He felt her body relaxing against his and held her tighter. He felt a smile stretch over his face. He whispered, so close to her ear, "I love you more, Sweetheart."

The End

:-)

A/N: I'm all gooey now, going to have to listen to heavy metal so I can think clearly. What do you think of the story?


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